Gaysi: The Gay Desi - Yes, we're legal!

[Guest Author : Educated Tatya]

My psychology teacher held that everyone is bi-sexual. Conditioning, upbringing, preference and an unknown biological imperative make us decide. So we are all 20, 30, 45, 85 per cent homosexual.

Don’t I know it. “I’m definitely bi-sexual,” I tell my male husband after reading a blog by a lesbian couple.

There is an allure to a same-sex relationship. So many of opposite gender fights are over not understanding the importance of little things.

Say the intimacy of making a meal together.

I daydream that deciding on a menu, shopping for ingredients and cooking together would be intimate and pleasurable activity, were I with a woman. There would be exuberant appreciation afterwards. An standing ovation even.

There is no romance in nagging and sulking in a supermarket and then hanging around the cold cuts.
I imagine it would be the same with non-sexual physical intimacy. You wouldn’t have to explain to a woman why you are entitled to a little drama for it to end in an embrace. Or why standing at the window is practically an invitation to be crept up to and embraced at the waist.

When I read about meals prepared with love-notes, kisses stolen in changing rooms and shopping dates, it leaves me wistful.

Mind you, so does the knowledge that another woman has been sleeping with Hugh Jackman for more than 12 years.

Sharing a life with a person of your own sex seems to iron out so many of the differences that come from coming from very different genders. The things you feel a little silly explaining. The need for appreciation, validation of appearance or abilities. All black tops never look the same to a woman.

[Guest Author: Silvara]

A post inspired by another’s in a time when everyone was questioning themselves…

So….Dumbledore is gay.

Ok, before you decided to switch off your computer for reading yet another revelation about this fiasco, let me just say, I’ve always been a late one to join the bandwagon. And this time – I don’t actually have much of a stance anyways. Dumbledore is gay – NO! Moments later…really?? Then – ok, moving on.

It’s been a hot topic as such in the blogosphere and there have been some really interesting, really heartfelt pieces about what exactly it all means. Both celebrating and disapproving about J.K’s announcement. Personally, I have no problem with good old Dumbledore being gay, because to me he wasn’t a person with much of a sexuality anyway lol. He was just the wise, eccentric, old fuddy-duddy headmaster that could be kinda scary at times and for whom I cried for when he died. I never picked up any of the gay innuendoes in the book. That could either mean I really am totally clueless when it comes to these things, or it just wasn’t there. I guess it didn’t have so much of an impact on me as an adult reader of the books but I can understand why some parents would object. Kids honestly don’t need to get involved in the politics of sexuality during their childhood, but it depends on how a child has been exposed to the issues in the first place. It’s a decision their parents would make, but for me – it makes no difference to the story.

Anyways, this isn’t what I wanted to write about.

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My dad always had this one complaint, “When will you grow up!” till one day he stopped complaining. And no, his death didn’t change a thing. I believe (some) people hide behind (their) immaturities, pretend that they don’t take life seriously and that they are well-in tuned with reality. They are invincible. But the reality of their reality is that they are simply scared; nervous to face their real self and even more petrified to show others their real self. And I was no different.

Coming from an affluent family, I have always lived a well provided materialistic life. Keeping up with appearances came all too easily. My family thinks I am this disconnected child, least bit emotional and extremely spoilt. Friends think of me as this happy bubble; funny, spunky and content with weekend party scene. The rest think of me as this strong headed individual, straight forward and balanced. And me, well, I let people see me as whatever I felt the situation demanded at the time.

I was being calculative. So I dated men, played along with the matrimonial charade, portrayed myself as this hamdard of sexual minorities (while the real me was screaming to jump out of the closet and reveal itself). For me, you see, this was a successful self protection plan.

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You’re in our hearts and prayers.

What does it mean to be heterosexual? What constitutes the state of being utterly and completely ‘straight’? Having plenty of ‘vanilla’ sex? Arranged marriage? Marrying only within your caste? Bloviating about your sexual conquests (if you are a guy) or coyly understating your sexual activities (if you are a girl) or vice versa? Oral sex? Sex only in the name of procreation? An unshakable belief in your heterosexual identity, because alternative sexualities have no place in India?

What the hell is it?

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I don’t know when exactly I realized that being bisexual was different. I think I sort of assumed that everyone was attracted to both men and women with equal sexual vigour.

And I want to talk about DD. The first woman I kissed. I must have been 18, and I was dazzled by her. She wrote poetry. She sang, and she spoke Hindi with that wonderful UP tone. She was exactly what I wasn’t. She was graceful, well mannered and yet strangely free. And it was some day in December. What can I say, it was cold, the sun was shining. And everything about her was just perfect.

Here’s the strange thing. I went to a very feminist women’s college. The sort of place that talked about lesbians and bisexuality the way most people talk about making maggi in hostels. Commonplace. Nothing to be shocked about. And yet, on that day when I kissed DD, (well, to be honest it was a nice long smooch), they dropped their plates.

This is what I remember. I kissed her and thought, “Bloody hell. It’s all so soft!”. Everyone around us though looked at us with disgust or disguised envy. Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference.

Our first kiss was the stuff of Hindi films. People whispering, us running off to the green rooms and making out. And yet, this was despite me knowing her boyfriend. I suppose he wouldn’t be as cool with it if she had kissed another man. But somehow her kissing me – a woman just seemed funny and strangely kinky to him. As though what we did was accidental, for his gaze. For his pleasure. Like we were going to give him his own porn film.

I don’t think he understood that she was beginning to love me more than she loved him.

It’s not just about the sex. It’s about love. What can I say? Is it really all that different sometimes?